


The Bones of You

by meguri_aite



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Drabble, Future Fic, M/M, prompt meme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-26
Updated: 2014-11-26
Packaged: 2018-02-27 02:18:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2675204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meguri_aite/pseuds/meguri_aite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>written for tumblr meme for <a href="http://homra-no-chiwawa.tumblr.com/">homra-no-chiwawa'</a>s prompt, takamido: exes meeting again after not speaking for years au</p>
<p>
  <i>Midorima’s fingers tightened a fraction too hard on the bone he was examining, and Takao’s smile grew even more nonchalant.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Bones of You

“Sensei, if you’re receiving anyone else today, there is a transfer from our Saitama branch.”

“Urgent?” Midorima asked, his eyes still on the patient files arranged on his desk.

“No, not really. It’s a minor elbow injury, but Yasuda sensei suspects damage for the ulnar nerve and asked for your consultation.”

Midorima took a last look at the papers in front of him and decisively closed the folder.

“I’ll see them. Show them in, please.”

Once the nurse was out, Midorima took off his glasses to rub at the bridge of his nose in a solitary moment of weakness. It had been a long day in a series of long days, but that was his job, and it had his full attention.

He heard the footsteps reach the door to his office before he could look up the file the nurse had forwarded to him. In an attempt to squash his irritation Midorima started adjusting his glasses, but his fingers froze on the frames as soon as the door closed behind the patient.

“Please come in, Kazunari-san,” the nurse was chirping to make the man feel at ease, and judging by her expression, she was pleased it was working.

Of course she would be, Midorima thought with detachment. Takao was smiling his generous easy smile, as effective as ever on anyone between eight and eighty, even with his arm in a light cast, cradled awkwardly against his chest. But Midorima wasn’t just anyone, and judging by the way Takao’s eyes were politely trained on the nurse, he was perfectly aware of that, too.

Midorima remembered to put his hands back on the table.

“Thank you,” he nodded to the nurse. “You can leave him to me now.”

Midorima wasn’t just anyone, and the surprise hidden behind the half-apologetic farewell smile Takao sent to the nurse didn’t escape him – a sure sign that his own wording didn’t escape Takao, either.

“What mess did you get yourself into, Takao?” Midorima said as they were left alone. He opened the patient file and was skimming through it, more alert than he had ever been today.

“Don’t be hard on me, Shin-chan! I was just playing some basketball,” Takao laughed in a way that would buy him time in any other conversation. But Midorima was done with his files – indeed, a minor injury, but it wouldn’t hurt to make sure the nerve wasn’t damaged – and Takao’s weaseling out techniques, so he stood up and moved to examine his patient’s arm.

“You play professionally now?” Midorima asked, looking at the calluses on Takao’s hand he was holding for examination. His own calluses had been just a memory for years now, gone like the tape that he used to wear.

“Me? No!” Takao said with a laugh. “Just a few games every other weeks with friends. Street basket, mostly. I’m an architect now, so no professional basketball for me.”

Midorima nodded, feeling almost lulled by the nostalgic rambliness.

“I wasn’t sure it was okay to waltz in here,” Takao said quietly as Midorima’s fingers probed at his wrist and pulled at his little finger.  After a brief pause, Takao – possibly spooked by the seriousness in his own voice - continued flippantly, “Wasn’t sure you’d remember me, wouldn’t be the first time if you had forgotten!”

Midorima looked straight at him, for the first time since all those years.

“Don’t be absurd, Takao.”

“Hah, should have known,” Takao met his eyes with his most light-hearted smile that meant he was dead serious. “You would be very good at remembering your exes, too.”

Midorima’s fingers tightened a fraction too hard on the bone he was examining, and Takao’s smile grew even more nonchalant.

“Still impertinent, I see.”

“Still affectionate, I see,” Takao mocked him, but the edge was gone from his voice, replaced by something calmer and yet more cryptic, and Midorima felt intrigued against his will.

“You don’t know that,” he huffed with a half-smile, before he could think better of it. Damn that Takao, he always knew how to get under Midorima’s skin with his inane remarks.

It earned him one Takao’s rarest smiles, a serious one.

 “I don’t know that,” he agreed.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to my forever knb ~~victim~~ [accomplice](http://throwingscissorsatinternets.tumblr.com/) for picking out mistakes in this!
> 
> the title is borrowed from the eponymous song by _Elbow_


End file.
